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Tamizh vaathiyaars (teachers) are great management gurus. Today, all of us may be in various parts of the world, building sound careers for ourselves. But one should never forget the contribution of those great men, who instilled precious lessons early in the learning process and made us better in what we do.

My 6th standard tamizh vaathiyaar known for his doctrines in life was in full form that day when he was evaluating one of my katturais (essays).

“This is wonderful stuff. Though you think you are a human being, you transform into a bull when asked to write in tamizh. And what you write is, well, just bullshit. Bullshit is priceless!”

To top the insult, he gestured with both his hands on his head, imitating the horns of a bull. Though fuming from inside, a ‘Nanri ayya’ (Thank you sir) is all that I could muster then.

My 8th standard Tamizh vaathiyaar was a true-blue tamizhian, he used to dress only in veshti (dhothi) and his abuse list mostly consisted of words which were too pure for us to understand. How else could one explain ‘Karuvaattu mundam’? No, ‘Dry fish duffer’ will not do.

One day, he was teaching a lesson on cows, when he suddenly had an Arindam Chaudhari-esque transformation.

Sometimes life presents you with situations, when you are forced to come up with cowdung. What differentiates the good from the great is the fact that the greats do not hesitate to “bite the bullshit”, whereas the self-righteous good-s languish by their ideals.

Back then, I had reacted to these statements with expressions of yuck. I had even jumped at the first opportunity to escape from Tamizh and the Tamizh vaathiyaars and switched to French(!?!) in my 11th standard. I had to start working and experience a few years of bullshit to recognise the profundity of their arguments. Management lessons, all.